Young Women's Weekend

I made it home from Jackson with a one hour window -- just enough time to cut up tomatoes, lettuce and apples for the picnic dinner I was in charge of, put my bags in the car and head to the church for our Young Women's weekend visiting the St. George and Cedar City temples. 

First stop was the Red Barn in Payson for ice cream. 

An hour later we stopped again at Cove Fort. 

This beautiful area was a church historic site and well worth the stop.

16 senior couple missionaries over see what is the 2nd most visited historic church site in the world!

(Temple square isn't considered a historic site. Nauvoo is Number One.)

The missionaries were so welcoming and eager to take us on the tour while we had enough light.

Their testimonies were one of the highlights of the trip. 

We were able to pick apples from their grove, and eat our picnic dinner on tables 

surrounded by grassy lawn as the sun went down.

It was so picturesque. I'm still on the hunt for apple orchards near us for 

apple picking in the fall!

We got to St. George by 10:00 but didn't get to the house were staying at until 10:30 because Apple Maps was leading us round and around the same roundabout.

It wanted us to turn left where there was no left turn and then kept rerouting us.

At one point I realized I was heading down an Off ramp -- The Wrong Way!

We finally pulled over and had the owner come find us so we could follow him to the house.

Win for Dan who always tells me to use Google Maps instead of Apple Maps!

As girls trips often go, we didn't get to sleep until 2:00 a.m. and were up by 8:00 a.m.

to start making breakfast. Lots of fun -- fun friends, fun girls, fun activities so I didn't feel tired at all.

View from the back porch.

We broke into two groups at the St. George Temple.

Half started with baptisms and the other half spent time at the Visitor's Center.

We were so impressed by the warm spirit of welcome we felt in both places. 

I was overcome by such a strong feeling of love.

One of the videos we watched in the Visitor's Center was about an

LDS Family, Japanese Rock Group, Bless4,

from Okinawa.  

After the girls in my group had been confirmed, an ordinance worker asked if I wanted to do a few as well. Sure. I sat down and wasn't I surprised that after I gave him my name, he spelled Shaeffer right!

It was his wife's maiden name!

He introduced her to me afterward and as we made connections she said she'd recently 

done work for Earl Shaefer. What a fun connection!

After the temple we came back home to swim and hangout.

But before the sun went down we gathered the girls for a hike and bike ride in Snow Canyon.